Girder Steel or Wood

In the planning phase of my basement. And had questions about a steel I-beam girder.

the dimensions of the house will be 32 x 48 foot. I am thinking about putting in a girder at 16ft and span 48.

Two questions:
1. will a steel ibeam need support in the center of the basement? the foundation walls will be either 8 or 10 inches thick. This depends on the girder. will 6 inches be enough support on the edges of the girder to support the 1st floor?

Attached is a quick image of the girder.

in the image the brown is the girder
and the black and red lines are 2x12x16 floor joists joined in the center of the girder. Any advise.

That won't work. Find a local engineer. A steel distributor also might be able to help you. But you probably won't get that approved by any building department without an engineer looking at it and doing the proper calcs.

In order to get a beam to span 48' (presumably unsupported midspan) with 32' of tributary load plus roof load, that beam would be so deep you'd need a 12' ceiling so you wouldn't bump your head on it! And you'd need one heck of a budget. Most homes use 8" or deeper beams at spans a fraction of what you're proposing.

Reply

I am happy this site is turning out useful. I see the only ones reading the post have nothing better to do then to say it wont work. With out offering an alternative solution.

I never mentioned the size of the I-beam the 6 inches are on the sides that the foundation wall will support. if the wall was 8 inches thick the ibeam would rest on 6 inches with another 2 inches of concrete on the exterior wall. I dont mind putting in additional supports down the center of the basement. I wanted to get some ideas of whether or not I should go parallel with the foundation or perpendicular splitting the foundation in 3rds if looking at it from the front.
I am no engineer but have built many houses but no basements. I wanted to do something different other then running a wooden girder down the center and supports all over the place. Thanks for your help with this.

Please accept the following advice from someone that does these calculations on residential structures for a living:

You can find residential standard wood framed construction references and span tables free at the local library, and probably on line. And any inspector is going to be able to go in the field, look at it, and make a good judgement call on traditional construction.

When it comes to trusses, engineered wood beams, steel and steel spans, and beam pocket construction, that falls outside the realm of traditional residential standard wood framed construction. Inspectors are less apt to take the builder's word for it. More and more, inspectors want to see the back up. In fact in commercial work, you can't get by without sealed drawings.

The effort involved in performing the due dilligence, sizing members, and detailing out the connections and fastener schedules to produce those sealed drawings isn't insignificant, nor it is generic. Wind, snow, rain, seismic, soil type, commercially available materials are all things that weigh in on the issue, and they're all based on where the structure is. As a PE, from my perspective, when I see a post like yours, my initial reaction is "I know exactly what calcs need to be done to answer this guy's question." I want to sink my teeth into it. But I can't just start calculating away to get the answers. There are too many local issues involved. Plus (and I say this with all due respect) that kind of work is what I do for a living, as in get paid for. And my license probably doesn't cover your state, so you'd be out of my jurisdiction anyway.

So in a nut shell, please accept this as sound advice from someone who does this for a living: you're better off finding a local engineer to work this out.

The solution has been offered in almost every response
--You need to have this sized/designed for the loads
An engineer will determine what you need for support on each end
You don't have a location listed in your profile
Codes vary widely by area & what works/passes code in one area will not work in another

I have 6 sets of LVL beams in my house & each one was sized & stamped by an engineer
This was required to get a building permit
I'm working on finishing up a 3 story 24x36 garage/addition that I built by myself

What you want to do can be done
Specifics for your location & loads need to be adressed/sized locally

People always seem to underestimate the amount of work it take to properly size and design a structural solution for a problem similar to this. They tend not to see that a single beam is part of a complex system of structure and that to provide a solution, the engineer has to design not just the beam, but how it fit into the whole system.
Not to mention the huge liability that would come with such an advice.